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First the Flag, Now What About the Gun?

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin holds a bill that eliminates a 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases.Credit Jeffrey Phelps/Associated Press

The sudden abandonment of the Confederate flag by Southern politicians has raised the question of whether the Charleston gun massacre of nine churchgoers might also prompt action on gun safety. The early answer is don’t count on it.

Gov. Scott Walker went ahead today with his previously announced plan to sign a new Wisconsin law that expands gun rights by eliminating what has been a two-day waiting period before a gun buyer can take possession of a weapon. The wait was designed to head off impulsive behavior, particularly in situations of rage, potential suicide or family violence. Governor Walker, who has an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association, did not hesitate to sign as he campaigns for the gun lobby’s agenda in seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

In Washington, Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic minority leader, sounded forlorn in calling on Congress to reconsider a safety issue endorsed by voters but not by politicians wary of offending the gun lobby — closing loopholes in the law requiring background checks of gun buyers. This proposal failed before a sheepish Congress two years ago despite national anguish after the gun spree that killed 20 Connecticut school children. “Let’s do something,” Senator Reid pleaded this time around amid the mourning over the Charleston carnage. Otherwise, he warned, “We will be here again. Our hearts will be broken again.”

In separate comments on “Morning Joe,” however, Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, one of the few Republicans who had favored stronger background checks, was apologetic in estimating the chances of enacting stronger gun safety after Charleston: “Honestly, probably not likely.” To the contrary, the current Republican House’s commerce committee has quietly inserted several pro-gun amendments into ongoing appropriations legislation. One of them would allow convicted felons to obtain firearms via a hardship petition to the federal ATF bureau. This “guns for felons” petition path was outlawed by Congress in 1992 after the discovery that thousands of felons — one out of three petitioners, including violent criminals — were granted “relief” and their firearms back, according to the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety research organization. Gun-rights lawmakers nevertheless are working to have it reinstated.

For all the past gun massacres, the National Rifle Association has successfully pushed Wisconsin and other states to legalize the concealed carrying of weapons by more and more citizens, selling it as the best possible defense against the nation’s gun violence. “We are making Wisconsin safer for all responsible, law abiding citizens,” Governor Walker insisted four years ago in signing concealed carry into law.
But armed people are more likely to use guns to harm others or themselves rather than to kill in self-defense, according to a new Violence Policy Center study of federal records. In 2012, there were 259 justifiable homicides by a citizen with a gun, compared with 8,342 criminal homicides by armed citizens (plus tens of thousands of gun deaths in suicides and unintentional shootings) . The study of a five-year period shows that less than one percent of victims in violent crimes used a gun, and only a tenth of one percent did so in property crimes, despite the rise in concealed carry and politicians’ talk of evening the odds.